/r/spikes isn't necessarily about being a good player (although it can be). It's about improving skills and deck building for competitive environments. Being a spike isn't about winning, it's about the passion for winning.

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"Spike is the competitive player. Spike plays to win. Spike enjoys winning. To accomplish this, Spike will play whatever the best deck is. Spike will copy decks off the Internet. Spike will borrow other players’ decks."

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Constructive criticism(s) only. Derogatory comments that add nothing to the conversation and/or comments without rationale will be removed without warning.

Only competitive decks, or decks built with competitive (NOT FNM) play in mind are to be considered. If you post a "rogue" deck, be prepared with sufficient rationale as to why your deck is competition-worthy in the current meta for your deck's format (post more than 75 cards and a "Please critique" plea!). Rogue decks without a primer or rationale will be removed. We welcome ideas, but require substance.

[Description Tags] are required in all posts. Posts without descriptive tags in square brackets will be removed automatically. No exceptions! See this post for details and accepted descriptive tags.

Non-deck magic discussion must be had with competition in mind (i.e. psychological factors, tips for tournament preparation). Any posts of a non-competitive nature will be removed.

Budget-based competitive discussion should only be posted in our weekly "Budget Beater" threads (posted on Mondays).

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Continued violations of any of these rules will result in a temporary, or, in serious cases, permanent ban from the community. Also, posts can and will be removed without warning.

As has been suggested, commented, and approved by the moderator team, we are trying to condense our competitive budget discussion into one place on a weekly basis.

This is the place where we discuss budget-conscious spikes and their needs for competitive magic. Maybe it's a card consideration given an X dollar budget. Maybe it's discussing current tier-1 decks under X dollars. Maybe you need that sweet cheap tech that no one else thought of? The ideas are only limited by the greenbacks in your wallet!

With that, feel free to discuss most anything budget-related here. Myself and the mod team will only be removing posts that are an obvious "I am unwilling to replace a necessary $<High Value> card in an established deck; make it cheaper" sort of plea. Otherwise, have at it!

Way too many spells, not enough creatures. I run a list that is a mashup of this and elfball, and even running 8 spells main (rancor and ranger's guile) sometimes you get opening hands full of one cost spells with no threats.

Pretty new to deckbuilding in this sense, how would you feel about Slitherhead or Wasteland Viper? The idea of pumping is all there, but I feel like Viper isn't big enough and Slitherhead isn't fast enough.

Maybe a set of Brushstrider? Would be good with the pumps already in the deck.

The version of the deck I run uses 8 mana dorks and 4 Elvish Archdruids, so BTE wouldn't really fit here. Also I run no two drops pre-board. Really the only pricey cards in my mainboard are predator ooze and craterhoof behemoth, and they aren't too spendy. I run deadly recluse in the side, better than viper I think. If I get a moment I'll send you my list.

I recently got MTGO. However, as a student, I have to be really conscious of how I budget my money for entertainment. What's the best way to get the most for my money on MTGO? Sealed? Draft? Standard? Phantom events?

if you want to play limited, I'd say phantom sealed will get you the most bang out of your buck. You can play at ~1700 and end up paying an average 1-2 tickets per event, even with the new price/prize structure. To get that kind of mileage out of draft (which is admittedly more fun), you'd need to play at a much higher level

Mainly I want to just play as much Magic as I can and get better at the game. I've been playing the New Player phantom sealed, but just to get the hang of the interface. I haven't tried draft or anything yet.

I'd suggest reading up on the pauper (commons only) format, there are a wide range of interesting decks played and the format is actually really competitive and spike friendly. Tier 1 decks cost anywhere from $20-$80 and you won't have to worry about rotation since it's eternal.

He didn't say anything about being new to the game, just mtgo, he also found spikes so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Even if he is new it isn't the worst place to start. The interactions in pauper aren't too crazy and even the weirdest decks are pretty easy to understand. I'm not talking about grinding dailies immediately or anything, just picking up a deck and learning it and a constructed format in practice rooms.

Actually, the upgrade is not exactly cheap. The most optimal version of R/G aggro runs a set of Tarmagoyfs ($140 each) and around 8 fetch lands ($30-$50 each). You can sort of get by without the goyfs, but the fetches are pretty much required to always have Kird Ape and Flinthoof Boar online.

Ah yeah, I forgot about Goyf. The fetches shouldn't be a problem, but he'll set me back a few dollars. Although, the rest of the shell doesn't look too bad since I'll steal a few of the money cards out of my casual decks.

I second the DnT recommendation and would have you look at pox as well for a little less (unless you run tabernacles anyhow). Merfolk is good too at around what DnT costs. One thing about legacy is that the truly budget decks like burn and manaless dredge are awful investments because you can't turn them into anything else over time. The investment is extremely specific. DnT for example let's you build into maverick or aggro Loam or goblins more easily by already providing some of the expensive pieces. Something to keep in mind.

Im looking to build melira pod and wont have any trouble picking up all of the cards except the fetches (i currently only play standard and edh). My question is how to build the deck without fetches? Should i swap out the deathrites? What else will not having the fetches affect?

It will affect getting your mana sources more easily and filtering (which as you proposed, eliminates much of Deathrite Shaman's effectiveness). It additionally leaves you more exposed to Blood Moon since you can't plan for it and fetch for basics post-board.

You could replace them with other lands, but the deck won't be as heavy a hit, and your percentages likely drop.

They dont have any fetches, and the store was only doing it for 1 day. Im a little low on money at the moment but picked up 3 abrupt decays and 2 jace aot for $25. Theyre doing 50% off again for black friday.

Just buy the fetchlands at 50% off. There is absolutely no point in buying cards to use as trade fodder when you can use the same money to buy the cards you want. Goyf is sitting at $150 right now, both Verdant Catacombs and Marsh Flats are at $35. Buying the two goyfs would normally run you $300, with the 50% off you are at $150. Buying a playset of either fetch would you run you $70 instead of $140, both sets of fetches would run you $140 total instead of $280.

Not to mention, you would actually have to find somebody willing to trade a playset of fetch lands for a goyf, which is going to take a while and its a complete waste of time when you could have just bought the cards that you need rather than buying cards solely for trading.

if you were going to buy the goyfs to use then thats a different story, but buying just to trade them away does not make sense.

Then the main issue you would run into is finding the right audience to trade goyfs for fetches, considering that a playset of both = 2 goyfs, not a lot of people are willing to give up that many staple cards at one time without receiving a little bit of a sweetener on top, your best bet would either be online trading or going to a large event like a PTQ, its possible to get a trade like this at FNM but its hard, not everybody is there to trade and not everybody brings their best cards to trade off.

If you can either line something up before going in on the goyfs or are fairly confidant in your ability to find somebody carrying around a playset of fetches who happens to be looking for a goyf, then go ahead but be aware that this could take a while or not go through at all.

This is my current budget beater legacy deck. I'm looking to make it better in the short term (keeping it BG) and long term (going Jund). I'm open to thoughts and ideas..

//Artifact

2 Umezawa's Jitte

//Creature

4 Dark Confidant

2 Tarmogoyf

4 Deathrite Shaman

3 Scavenging Ooze

//Planeswalker

3 Liliana of the Veil

//Instants
4 Abrupt Decay

3 Dark Ritual

//Sorcery

4 Hymn to Tourach

3 Thoughtseize

2 Maelstrom Pulse

1 Life from the Loam

//Enchantment

2 Pernicious Deed

//Land

4 Overgrown Tomb

3 Verdant Catacombs

11 Swamp

5 Forest

I'm looking for some more legacy upgrades. I think long term, I'm going to slowly transform it into Jund, but I'm looking for short term (and long term upgrades). I know I need to get more gofys and drop ritual, I'm open to other ideas.

Well, if you do eventually transform it into Jund, I would look into Punishing Jund. Groves are a lot cheaper than Taigas and Punishing Fire simply wins those long, grindy matches. Bloodbraids also add a cheap and effective threat to the deck.

Yeah, that's a good call. I've seen a couple of those lists, I just don't want to introduce a 3rd color until i get some more of the lands.. as right now I think it's still pretty rough running two colors. Any other lands I could go after?

Well, a couple of Wastelands will help a lot, but those aren't budget at all. In straight BG, you should have 4 fetches, 4 duals, and you could probably do with some filters for more fixing. Treetop Village wouldn't be that bad of an idea with such an open mana base, but you would need a couple more forests to make it work.

have you thought about going monoblack? With the cards you have it might be a higher ev decision. I think pox with land destruction is relatively well positioned at the moment and you seen to have some of the money cards.

It isn't particularly worth it right now. Given the current meta of fair decks and more fair decks cards like Deed and Abrupt Decay are the best things you can run. In a few months when the meta takes a hard swing towards unfair decks monoblack may be where you want to go.

Yeah, in the "fair" deck position, Jund (with my deck somewhat less so, but so far in playtesting) seems to be REALLY well positioned to grind out a game.

Do you play much legacy? I'm still getting into it, so there's a lot of choices I have to deal with. I'm looking for things against my local meta as well (Aggro (Goblins and Mono-Black), Pox (I found out someone already had Pox built), a few delvers and Enchantress). Any suggestions against them, particularly Enchantress?

Goblins: Play against goblins like it's aggro and you'll lose every time. Goblins is a combo-control deck. You'll want to make sure you get deathrites to get around their mana denial (Port, wasteland) and you'll want to thoughtseize later rather than sooner. Their only really scary 1 and 2 drops both die to removal but the ringleader will ruin your day. Be especially careful of the warchief and you'll be fine. Deed is by far your most powerful card here.

Mono-black: No real experience against a monoblack aggro deck.

Pox: Make sure your keeps are strong against LD, their major win cons are Assembly workers and scroll so your removal doesn't do very much. Discard is strong here, removal does next to nothing. Obstinant baloths may be worthwhile.

Delver: Deed when you find an opening. The card slaughters this deck. Abrupt decay and DRS are your best cards in this MU. GY removal goes a really long way against them. When you get wastes, extripating a trop is the sort of play that RUG players talk about in hushed voices at the back of GPs.

Enchantress: Kind of an odd one, discard is your best bet G1. They play a lot of basics. Post board they will have leyline so I would side out some discard. Since you know this deck will be out there having a copy or two of back to nature can stop them dead in their tracks. Again, Deed is one of your best cards.

First, I want to say thank you very much for your advice. I need just about all the advice I can get. I'm still pretty new to legacy but I must admit I really have enjoyed the challenge.

What do you normally play?

What do you mean about playing Goblins like it's aggro-combo instead of aggro? Turn one lackey has spelled doom for me more often then not (if i'm not holding a decay, or DRS). I have in the past just sided out thoughtseizes for this game (and brought in 2x despise, another deed), I realize despise probably won't be in my sb long term, but it works well against the aggro :)

As far as Pox goes, yeah, I could see the baloths being really worthwhile. So I should just go on the hand disruption plan and try to stick to it?

Delver honestly hasn't presented me with much of a problem (unless I can't draw removal for damn turn 1 delver). I also have Choke sideboard which helps a bit :) I'll be honest I didn't pick up on Extripating a dual land.. That's pretty sweet. Yeah, wastelands are getting higher on my priority list.

I didn't even know back to basics existed.. I'm definitely going to have to pick some up for my sideboard, because as it stands if I don't get deed here, I pretty much always lose.

What do you mean about playing Goblins like it's aggro-combo instead of aggro?

Goblins has a lot of high value creatures but many of them are unimportant. Against a true aggro deck (like DnT or Merfolk) you can just jam your removal at any creature for nearly equal effect. Against Goblins there are specific targets that, when killed, cause the deck to fall apart. Ringleader from the hand and T1 lackey are the classic examples. Killing their lords is less important and piledriver is a squire unsupported.

As far as Pox goes, yeah, I could see the baloths being really worthwhile. So I should just go on the hand disruption plan and try to stick to it?

I took this list to a Legacy event at my shop. I fought pretty hard against UWR Delver-Stoneblade, was able to 2-0 a competitive Esper Deathblade deck and 2-0 a competitive UB Reanimator list. I got paired down in Round 4 to face a competitive Merfolk list, won the first game, but got pretty bad draws/mulligans in the next two games to end up losing.

I've since updated the list to this deck, which I believe is better. I've managed to win extensively against my friend playing Esper Deathblade, RUG Delver, and Shardless BUG (but my friend's piloting skills aren't optimal).

The budget prevents me from having the optimal mana-base, but the mana isn't inconsistent. In what way could I improve?

Body and Mind was just the sword I owned a copy of before the event, and I knew I didn't want a third Runechanter's Pike. But BnM has really exceeded expectations.

I was considering Feast and Famine for the deck as well: I knew I wanted a pro-green Sword as this deck gets into racing situations, and it usually can't race a Tarmogoyf, which forces the deck to switch gears and play defensively until I can AK for a bunch of cards.

But I've also found that the abilities on BnM seem more relevant for the deck. There are situations where both players are out of resources, and I need a Sword that can do something unique. A situation did come up where I had a Judge's Familiar and Sword of Body and Mind against an opponent's Batterskull. The Sword allowed me to chump block with a wolf every turn and mill my opponent out, while my opponent kept gaining life, but not dealing damage.

I suppose that's cool. It just seems like it would be rarely as relevant as making them discard and untapping your mana. Btw, in that same situation that you mentioned, FnF would have prevented your opponent (assuming that the Batterskull was on a germ) from gaining life. Swing with sword, reequip to another creature.

Hey spikes! I recently have been making the move from casual to competitive magic picking up junk crats and reanimator in paper and b/g rock w/b humans on mtgo. all standard decks obviously im interested in trying modern tho and im wondering what the more budget wise lists are out there if someone could link me in the right direction ill be in your debt thanks!

A lot of decks got a lot "worse." It's not that hard to play around things like that or adjust the decklist to deal with the threats... People have been saying that for months and it hasn't been that big of a deal.

In budget modern if you can run a list that doesn't require fetchlands, goyf, or dark confidant, it's usually pretty cheap (relative to other decks). However, taking the dive on fetchlands over time (buy 1 a week or every two weeks) only stings for a bit, until you realize how many more decks are available to you now that you have the fetches. I started with a set of Scalding Tarns and Arid Mesas for my UWR control deck, and have since acquired Misty Rainforests. I have 4 modern decks built now and actually have the fetches for a few more that I'm considering, and they won't cost me much because I already have the manabase.

Awesome thanks for the ideas i think i have a good starting point with this. Fantastic responses as always with this subreddit. Are there any particular variants that are better or worse in the current meta? Im thinking about checking out merfolk and then start collecting some fetches.

there's a bunch of fantastic removal type in RTR block. Abrupt decay, dreadbore, putrefy, war-leader's helix, rakdos's return, verdict, mortars, and many more. These spells aren't that expensive and along with a solid manabase a good package of these can carry some decks.

There's a good deal of speculation that the U/x Control cards in RtR are going to become the shell of a very successful U/x deck post-rotation.

These are mostly in UW - Aside from Sphinx's Revelation, most of these cards are pretty budget-priced for such high-octane control cards.

The high-impact rares that are expected to be good are:

Supreme Verdict (currently $4-5) since it will be very good in a format with no undying, flashback, or reanimator.

Detention Sphere (currently $2). Oblivion Ring is rotating out with no known replacement right now, and Detention Sphere will be a very versatile removal spell if there are good Enchantments in Theros - it is one of the only cards in Standard that can kill an Enchantment or a Creature, unless they reprint Mortify.

Jace, Architect of Thought (currently $12). He's already a must-play in all of the U/x control decks in Block Constructed, and beginning to see play as a 1-2 of in current control decks in Standard. People are expecting him to become insanely good when all of the haste creatures from M13 and Innistrad block rotate out. The main reason not to play him right now is having him one-shotted by Thundermaw Hellkite, Hellrider, Falkenrath Aristocrat, a bunch of Flinthoof Boars...the list goes on. All of those go away soon and if Theros doesn't replace 4 sets worth of haste Creatures Jace is going to be awesome.

Aetherling (currently $4). U/x control decks' best win con post-rotation. No more Nephalia Drownyard, Restoration Angel, or Thundermaw Hellkite - there's almost no competition for U/x finishers in M14 and RtR. Aetherling is it right now, except for Esper decks that can play Obzedat and Blood Baron.

Boros Reckoner (currently $12) is already a bit high, but it might go somewhere if Minotaurs are a thing, or even just if RW is a thing.

Ral Zarek (currently $10). If UR(x?) is any good, Ral will be in it, as a repeatable Lightning Bolt will actually be good when everything isn't coming back from the dead or leaving tokens behind.

Counterflux or Render Silent (both under $1). No more Dissipate. U/x control needs a better counterspell than Cancel, and UW and UR have good counters on 3 mana cost available to them.

Precinct Captain (under $1). If W/x Aggro is good, especially if it is RW or GW tokens, this guy is going to be a must-include.

Mizzium Mortars (currently $3). Out of RtR and M14, this is one of the best Red removal spells. Unless something better comes along in Theros this card is going to dominate.

Another thing I would note is that cards like Precinct Captain and Mizzium Mortars will be better depending on the cycle of lands that Theros introduces. If we get Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands, these cards will be better.

Filter lands refer to two different cycles of lands, one from Odyssey and the other from Shadowmoor/Eventide.

The ones I was talking about were the Shadowmoor/Eventide lands, which cost one hybrid mana to activate and produce either 1 of each mana that could have been spent to activate it or 2 mana of a single color that could have been used to activate it.

They're really useful when you're playing a multicolor deck but also running powerful spells like Cryptic Command which are very mana intensive towards a single color. Particularly in 3 color decks (take Modern UWR for instance), if your first three lands are Island, Sacred Foundry, Plains, then you can still cast a T4 Cryptic Command with a Cascade Bluffs. Similarly, cards like Precinct Captain and Mizzium Mortars would be easier to cast if you have filter lands, which can essentially not only serve as a dual land, but also turn a non-dual land into a dual land.

The one card I find conspicuously missing from all these posts is Blood Baron of Vizkopa. The card dodges most removal, and the main cards post rotation that interact favorably with him are Mizzium Mortars, Far // Away, Turn // Burn and Supreme Verdict. Assuming that Burning Earth and lack of duals push decks to get back to only running 2 colors, Blood Baron will generate free wins simply by being impossible to kill.

Black is losing Tragic Slip, Liliana of the Veil, Mutilate, Blood Artist, Disciple of Bolas, as well as a bunch of its most important cards. I definitely think that Desecration Demon will become more popular, but I'm really not sure how solid black will be post rotation. We'll see what we get, but barring a huge card like Thoughtseize or even Damnation, I'm not sure I'm as confident in black as you are.

Lifebane Zombie and Doom Blade, boiiiiiiiii!!!! In all seriousness though, you are right, black is looking more like a support color unless it gets a big pump with Theros, which could defiitely happen. But monoblack I just don't see with geralf's, gravecrawler, and the good Lili going bye bye.

I don't even view Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger as being a big part of it, although creature-based decks won't be as good because more control decks can start boarding and even main decking Essence Scatter (no more Caverns!).

That said, losing Liliana is a huge blow. They might reprint some other board sweeper to fill the holes left by Mutilate in the B/G Rock deck, but I can't imagine them reprinting anything nearly as powerful as Liliana for a while. We might see black appear, but it will probably be there just to provide Green decks the ability to play Abrupt Decay and Putrefy and to give Blue control decks the ability to play Doom Blade.

Lifebane is great, but only if we get back to the world of Thragtusks and other big GW creatures (which is a distinct possibility given that Hydras are apparently going to be relevant in Theros). He's also a great card against Archangel decks, but I'm not even sure how great he will be against faster GW decks. He's probably not going to ever hit a Voice, he can only hit a Loxodon Smiter on the play, and Advent of the Wurm isn't technically a creature.

We'll have to see just where the metagame goes and what Theros brings us, but Black is going to need a lot of toys to ever get back to where the B/G Rock list is right now. I don't think Theros standard will be like Avacyn's Restored Limited, but it will probably play a supporting role like it does in Huey-esque Jund lists that are popular at the moment.

With GP Detroit coming up, a good friend of mine challenged me to take a Zombie deck to it. It shouldn't be too straining for me money-wise, given that I have $250 to work with, and that most half decent decks of this archetype run only two colors (most notably the R/B Zombies deck that occasionally gets good results).

However, a few days ago another friend showed me a rather... interesting variant of the archetype. Its U/B, and its an aggro deck, oddly enough. It seems resilient, and after a bit of online and offline proxy testing, I've found that it stands up decently to Jund and American Control. It seems to have a fantastic matchup against R/G Aggro somehow, although I may have just gotten lucky a lot. However, it has a poor matchup against Junk Rites and Esper Control.

So I'm wondering, would /r/spikes have me buy the cards to put this together, or go with a more standard R/B Zombies list? (such as this)

I don't anticipate being able to afford them any time soon or even ever. Is legacy or at least this deck not even worth running without these pricey lands even though I have the rest of the deck? Or can I survive at a semi decent level with replacements like Ghost Quarters. I know it puts me at a significant disadvantage relative to other decks but does it make my deck totally unplayable?

Follow up question, aside from ghost quarter what are some other budget alternatives I could run in this deck to try and make it at least semi competitive?

Okay so it's vital to the synergy of the deck. I guess I'll just keep it on the shelf until I can get the lands together. There really hasn't been any other deck that really grabbed my attention like death and taxes so I'd rather just save up for it then half ass it.

Follow up question, I'm sure that wastelands are a solid investment in terms of viability in other decks but are the other two lands as powerful for other decks should I choose to change things up? Or are they really only played in D and T. Thanks for your advice so far.